Problem:

I am having difficulty connecting to the NC State Remedy system. I
believe the problem may be related to the fact that my computer is
behind a firewall.


Solution:

Recent changes to the network configuration of the NC State Remedy
implementation have presented some problems for Remedy users whose
clients are behind a firewall. If you are accessing the Remedy server
from behind a firewall, you may need to make changes to your Remedy
client configuration, and to the firewall configuration. These changes
are outlined below.

First, some background:

The NC State Remedy server is configured to utilize a facility called
"port mapper", which allows for a dialog between the Remedy server
and the Remedy client during which they negociate a TCP port over
which to carry out the subsequent session. This dialog starts out over
TCP port 111, and may continue over an arbitrary TCP port that the
client and server agree on. When a firewall is in place, this dialog will
not complete correctly, and the client will not be able to connect to
the server.

However, the NC State Remedy system is also configured to listen for
client requests on a specific TCP port, bypassing the port negotiation
dialog. This may still present connectivity problems in a firewall
environment, but they are more well defined, and easier to resolve.

Firewall Configuration:

To allow the Remedy client and server to communicate through a firewall,
the firewall administrator must allow traffic over the following TCP
prts:

   33000 - Remedy client traffic

We recently completed a transition to a new Remedy server, runing
a later version of the Remedy server software. To make a connection
to the new version 5.1 server, the host that are to be allowed are:

   remedy.ncsu.edu ( 152.1.226.114 )

Allowing this traffic through should be all that is needed on the
firewall.

Remedy Client Configuration:

As mentioned above, unless otherwise configured, the Remedy client will
attempt to utilize portmapper to determine which TCP port to use to
communicate with the Remedy server. This behavior can be avoided by
instruction the Remedy client (and the Notifier client) to communicate
on a specific TCP port. The steps for configuring the Remedy clients are
as follows:

Windows client:

1.  Use the login dialog box (choose Tools Accounts if already logged in).
2.  Click the Accounts button.
3.  The users on the client will be listed. Choose the desired user by
highlighting that user name.
4.  Note the Servers list for this user.
5.  Highlight the desired server (remedy.ncsu.edu).
6.  Make sure the Advanced Server Properties box is checked.
7.  Click on the AR TCP Port column of the desired server.
8.  Fill in the TCD-Specific-Port for this server. In our case this number is
33000.
9.  Pres ENTER
10. Click Close.

The next time this client logs in, the client will access the server
without using portmapper.